


The Art of Sharpening Japanese Knives

by AnonymousHeavyIndustries



Category: Free!
Genre: Character Study, Family Issues, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:02:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21857278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousHeavyIndustries/pseuds/AnonymousHeavyIndustries
Summary: That knife remains as alive as it ever did, despite attempts to render it as dead as any other common utensil. Haru would not have it otherwise.Sometimes a knife is more than a knife.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	The Art of Sharpening Japanese Knives

切

Rust rode the blade as skin rode his bones and in the instant he saw it, a deep, overwhelming shame overrode Haru. For hours now he had wrapped himself in his blanket, nested in its entombing folds knowing he could never never never leave dreading the inevitable conversation that would come when grandma had seen what he'd done; he would run if it was not so cold out and so early it would have been so easy to not do it, be satisified using his mother's knives instead, anything but steal grandma's knife and ruin it. He figured she had plenty of knives for all kinds of things, what was one _santoku_ really? She had not said anything when he left her home last time nor anything in the days since nor anything this time when his mother unceremoniously dropped him at the door at almost ten at night with "your father and I have to go away for a while" and nothing more than that, only enough time to pack an overnight bag and the stolen knife which he put back in the kitchen in the exact place he got it without grandma noticing because she was already asleep when they got there but his parents knew she wouldn't mind him staying over because she never minded anything. The hoax, shabby as it was, was complete. Temptation drove his eyes to the clock; grandma would be up soon, making breakfast as she always did—there, the rice cooker turning on, it wouldn't be long now; he burrowed tighter under the covers and wished he would turn into a dust mite and be swept up and thrown out in the trash scrunching in on himself tightening bunching nausea swelling at the gentle thud of feet passing the guest room for the kitchen pausing there then making their way back to his room.

The door slid open and there she was standing over him in her nightclothes not even yet wearing that light yuzu perfume of hers that clung to her clothes and his cheeks when she embraced him before he left back to his parents' house and came to his side and called softly Haruka-chan, Haruka-chan, did you use my knife? He refused to move, breathe, anything and remained crunched there and she said it's okay, haruka-chan, we can fix it, come see.

Haru reluctantly unbunched himself and plodded after with tears prickling in his eyes. Grandma put the stepstool up for him and he climbed onto it and looked at the mess he had made. It was worse than he thought, hideous orange rust coating everything and the cutting edge chipped in places; Grandma pointed to a chip and said that was from hitting something too hard, things had to be cut on a soft cutting board, a wood cutting board like the one she had, but when he had used it before he left last time her cutting board had been stored up too high so he couldn't reach it and cut it straight on the counter instead and there were scratches in the counter now too and then his mother didn't have a wood board and that made it worse; the rust, she said, was because the knife was not stainless like his mother's knives were, they couldn't be left to dry in the dish rack the way his mother's could, that would make them corrode, they had to be taken care of the right way, which was to wash them after using them, then dry them thoroughly and never leave them in the dish rack because the dishes bumping around could chip them too.

She put rust removing gel on the knife and scrubbed it carefully and it seemed like magic somehow, there then gone, only leaving freckles of rust behind, then she got out a block of wood with a scratchy surface and a block with a smooth surface and said this was how you fix the dents and she swept the blade across the scratchy surface and the edge grew smaller, narrower and the dents disappeared then she flipped the block over and scraped it over a less scratchy edge and then moved it over to the smooth leather block and the edge was less bumpy and then smooth, shiny smooth. Grandma picked up an apple and sliced a sheet so thin it was a windowpane, passing through light, then she went ahead and made the usual breakfast with a side of apple rabbits and washed the knife again and dried it very carefully and applied camellia oil, which would help prevent it from rusting in the future and moved the cutting board down to the counter, where he could reach it.

When she went out to water the garden, Haru climbed on the stepstool and touched the edge of the knife to his finger.

It was sharp.

手切れ

The food didn't taste right, less clean and slick somehow, the way grandma's recipes usually tasted when his mother cooked them and he used to think maybe she was messing up the seasonings or something, but grandma said it was because his mother used cheap knives, sold in a set from a big store, on a plastic cutting board that banged up the edge, and never sharpened them. That was the difference, she said, between okay sashimi and great sashimi, stinky mashed up onions that made you cry when you cut them or tearless cuts, a muddled shadow of flavor versus the truth. It was the taste of sharpness.

But his mother had grandma's knives now so that shouldn't be a problem anymore.

"Why didn't you use grandma's knives?" he asked, easing a slice of pickled lotus root into his mouth.

She made a peculiar face, like she was chewing on a whole sea urchin and didn't say anything for a while, sipping her miso soup and looking through the spot where his father never was and eventually settled on, "Grandma's knives are too high maintenance. And they were very expensive."

He didn't see how cost had anything to do with it and they were hardly more difficult to take care of than a stainless knife, but he supposed any level of maintenance seemed impossible to a person who would pick up a blunt knife, say, ah, the edge is dull now, and throw it in the garbage and buy a new one.

When dinner was through and his mother went out to attend her weekly neighbourhood association meeting, Haru started his search. They were not in their cases, black with gold lettering and a soft fabric interior that would not damage the blade, nor were they with his mother's blunted stainless set, nor under grandma's wedding kimono or her tableware or any of the other unsorted things that had been occupying the guest room the past six weeks. The whetstone and stropping block he found crammed beneath a pair of mouldering sponges behind a bottle of bleach paste under the sink and had to stop for a moment to get the smell off them. The camellia oil was in the bathroom with his mother's hair products. The knives he finally found in their junk drawer, loosely thrown together, banging around on each other, screwdrivers and odd knobs and duct tape and everything else. From the rubble he lifted the _santoku_ , chipped all along the edge and sheathed in rust. Grandma's name, carefully etched into the blade, was covered in rust too.

Anger swelled to a burning knot in his throat as he stared at the knife, lungs aching as a tear pattered onto the blade. He hurried to swipe it away. He wouldn't ruin it any more than it already was. He bought rust remover from the convenience store, then rolled up his sleeves, lined the knives neatly on the counter, and set to work.

He tested the knife with a page from his mother's homekeeping magazine.

It was sharp.

プチ切れ

Whiter than white. Strange, that a man so pale could do that. Breakfast arrayed on the table. Grilled mackerel with the skin bubbling and deliciously oily. Red miso soup. Tall bowls of rice. Pickled cucumber salad. In a soapwater-filled sink, a chipped _santoku_. Haru lifted it from the water to determine the full extent of the damage. The handle was soft.

"I didn't," Albert started, then turned around and went back to the bedroom.

The breakfast was perfect, practiced. Cooked three dozen times in a kitchen in Sweden by an amateur who had never used a real Japanese knife. He couldn't know how fragile they were. This thin, easily chipped blade that had lived longer than he had. Hate prickled in Haru—a particular excruciatingly intimate kind that gutted him as a stranger coming in and snapping the blade on the counter never could. He should have known, even if he couldn't.

Soapwater dripped from the handle. It had only been replaced once, when he was nine. For eleven years, the magnolia wood had held strong. Replacement was easy. Repair wouldn't be cumbersome either. It still hurt.

Banged up. Rusted. Rotted. Sharpened into 15° nothingness. And then what? Put back in its box? Kept as an unliving art piece when life was in the use of an object? The _yanagi_ and _nakiri_ were in good condition. The _gyuto_ he hardly ever used. But the _santoku_ —

 _At this rate, it won't be much longer_ , the doctor said to them in confidence. They never told patients how bad their situation was. They would do anything to avoid it. It was the kind of lie he couldn't stomach but his parents wouldn't let him say otherwise. The next day, he skipped swim club. He ran from school to the train station, from the train station to the hospital, bypassed the white-skirted nurses and self-important doctors, dragging a backpack heavy with worksheets, books, the obligatory but unwanted melodica up the neverending staircase to the room that had become hers and weaved under branches of incoherent plastic tubing to rest his head by her withered thigh and tell the truth.

_I know. Thank you for being honest._

He laid down the knife still wet and followed to the room.

Albert lumped dirty laundry into his suitcase atop the clean. His comb was gone from the nightstand, and his toiletry bag too. He was not a child. There would be no bunching up agonized under the blankets for him.

"Al."

"It's a special knife, isn't it." His accent edged in heavier than normal. "It had a name."

"We can fix it. I'll show you."

They dried the knife as best they could and put the rest off until after breakfast. The mackerel had started to lose the oily robustness of being fresh from the flame, but the cucumbers had the taste of sharpness in them. In the corner of the bowl, Haru preserved the garnish—a carrot rose which had exacted on Albert's fingers a toll of two bright blue plasters. At the end he picked its petals, windowpane thin.

The blocks took their place on the counter. Haru guided Albert's hands. Sharpened. Stropped. Oiled.

"Here," Haru said, taking up the last carrot of the bunch, "You won't hurt yourself this way."

And cut him flowers across the counter, shreds of orange peppering the melamine.

It was sharp. It would be used.

切り

Flower carrots, apple rabbits. Camellia in the kitchen.

A thirty-year-old knife, still sharp.

**Author's Note:**

> This was the first time I had an idea for a narrative structure before I had an inkling of what it'd be about or who would be in it and since AlHaru has become my experimental pair, I ended up fencing it off on them. Come back next year for my AlHaru Nouveau Roman. It'll be dreadful.
> 
> Criticism is not only welcome, but encouraged, and helps me create better content in the future. Thanks for reading.  
> 23 December 2019  
> \- 匿名重工業


End file.
